395natural ecosystem. The uncoordinated changes in the functions of two systems are
called the disorders of ecological balance. The key strategy to solve the problem is
striving to improve the assimilation scale and productivity of the system. Improving
productivity of people-centered agriculture (in a broad sense) is the key to improve
ecological environment and develop sustainability of ecosystem (Li 1999 ).
Over last decades, great achievements have been made in the basic construction
of farmland including land leveling and terrace construction programs in the dry-
land agricultural areas of Loess Plateau. In recent ten years, innovative cultivation
system of dryland crops, mainly featured by ridge-furrow covering farming technol-
ogy, led to a great increase in the yield of crops, and accordingly produced a large
amount of straw resources. This help provides rich sources of crude forage for the
development of animal husbandry, and therefore gradually updated the people’s
understanding on the mode of animal husbandry development. This also resulted in
the rapid development of the animal husbandry, which has been in long delay
before, and provided an opportunity for the integrated development of dryland eco-
system. In this chapter, we provide a brief introduction to the key points of these
developments, and summarize the main principles and practices involved. These
will provide references for harmonizing agricultural development, ecological pro-
tection and regional sustainable development in those similar areas in the world.
2 Terraces and Fertility Betterment
Dryland farming in China is mainly distributed in the hilly area where the terrace is
a primary measure to control soil erosion and stabilize the development of agricul-
tural production. Terrace construction has a history of about 2000 years in China,
and plays an important role in the development of dryland agriculture. Terrace
establishment can help intercept runoff and sediment, increase precipitation infiltra-
tion, and improve agricultural productivity while reduce soil erosion (Fig. 2 ).
In general, the terrace can be categorized into four basic types (Guo and Li
2014 ): sloping terrace, interval terrace, bench terrace and back terrace. Sloping ter-
race is relatively primitive and was generally established under the pervasive avail-
ability of preliminary tool of production. It consists of several ridges along the
contour to intercept sediment from runoff on sloping land, which is easy to build
and abolish. Interval terrace is more efficient than sloping terrace, which remains a
slope allocated between the upper and lower terraces. This kind of terrace looks flat
to reduce the risk of runoff. Flat terrace is shaped by shoveling and flatting the plant-
ing surface, and then constructing a dyke at the outer edge of the terrace. There
exists a relatively steep slope land between the upper and lower terraces, which
enables land use more efficiently and crop productivity to be significantly improved.
On the other hand, back-slope terrace is built as reverse gentle slope, which inter-
cepts sediment from runoff more effectively. The establishment requires more labor
input, yet the capability of controlling soil erosion is significantly increased. This
sort of terrace is suitable for the areas with high rainfall amount. Since the founding
Integrated Dryland Agriculture Sustainable Management in Northwest China